


Beautiful People

by Kannika



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Multi, Stoncy Week, Stoncy Week 2020, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:48:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23901103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kannika/pseuds/Kannika
Summary: Steve’s grin widens, and he comes in, crosses the room, and drops identical kisses on Jonathan's forehead and Nancy’s.“Good morning, handsome,” he says. “I see the trauma sleepover worked its magic. You slept in.”Nancy sighs heavily. “You cannot keep calling it that.”“Well, then what are we calling it? Cuddle party?”
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 6
Kudos: 126





	Beautiful People

**Author's Note:**

> I hear it's Stoncy Week! I've been on a Stranger Things kick recently, and this is my favorite pairing, so I have to contribute to this wonderful fandom. I just found out about it last night, so I'm posting a few days late, but the prompt sounded like too much fun to skip.
> 
> This is for day one- "Good morning, beautiful/handsome".

Jonathan wakes up alone. 

It confuses him for a second, to wake up and grasp covers instead of another body— more than it should, maybe, because he slept alone for most of his life. _Was_ alone for most of his life, even if it was by choice. Maybe that’s why he notices so acutely, why the absence smarts so much when it definitely isn’t personal. It just fell into place so naturally, to… not be alone. Not sleep alone. 

But he did sleep, and that’s an improvement over the last few weeks, so… he’ll take it. He closes his eyes, stretching his arms over his head, and chases the last bits of the dream he had before he woke up. It was something nice, he remembers, but the memory of it is fading. That’s a shame. He remembers his nightmares so perfectly he feels like he could take a picture of them. 

He hears footsteps, so he opens his eyes and sits up, shivering when the cool air hits his bare shoulders. It takes him a second, to clear his vision, but by the time he can see, the bed is shifting with someone sitting in front of him. 

Nancy smiles at him. She’s wearing one of his sweatshirts, an old ratty one that he didn’t give to her which means he doesn’t know how she got it, and it’s baggy and hangs sideways on her frame but she somehow makes it look good. It baffles him, how she is wearing his old clothes and her hair is curled in odd directions from sleeping on it and there’s still sleep sand in the corners of her eyes and she looks damn _beautiful._ There’s something about it that’s even more beautiful than when she gets dressed up. Maybe that it’s her when she’s raw, not Nancy Wheeler but just Nancy, with no armor or labels or expectations. Maybe that she trusts him to see her when she is, to understand.

Regardless. He’s blessed, this reminds him.

“Good morning, lazy bones,” she teases when he’s just staring at her. 

Jonathan smiles, but lays back down. If she’s not going to make him get up, he’s going to take full advantage. “Good morning, beautiful.” 

Nancy sighs. “See, you can’t say things like that when I call you names. It makes me feel mean.” 

“You are mean. You made me wake up alone.” 

“That’s better. Now we’re even.” But when he doesn’t get up, she crawls up the bed, lying next to him on top of the covers. It feels so easy, so natural, to tilt his head into her so she can fuss with his hair. He has bedhead, he knows, and he’s sure it doesn’t look okay like Nancy’s hair, but if she doesn’t care neither does he. “You sleep like the dead.” 

“I have to. Steve snores.” Speaking of which, he looks around, but Steve isn’t standing in the corner watching them like he usually does. “Where is he?” 

“Making breakfast.”

Jonathan grins. “See,” he says, and it still puts a lump in his throat to say the words out loud, but maybe, if he keeps saying them, it will sink in that this is _real,_ “this is why I need a boyfriend and a girlfriend. I can cuddle _and_ have breakfast.” 

“That implies you’re getting any.” Nancy is smiling, too, though, he can tell just from her light tone of voice. She doesn’t address it, doesn’t immediately chime in that she has the same thing having two boyfriends. He’s not sure if Steve will, either. It’s still… new. But they’re stubborn, all three of them, and if they decide they want this, they’ll make it work. And they do.

There’s something comforting that comes will being a team fighting against nearly supernatural creatures, with starting a relationship (even before they called it that) with the emotion cranked all the way up. When you’ve held someone while they hyperventilated over terrible memories, it’s no problem at all to listen to them vent when they have a bad day. When you’ve patched someone’s face up after they took a beating and thought _they could have died,_ it’s easy to get over hurt feelings that come from forgetting about a date. 

They found each other, and they’re alive. That puts a lot in perspective. 

“You didn’t wake up with a nightmare,” Nancy says, and she sounds satisfied. If his nightmares were monsters, he thinks sometimes, she would fight them off with her bare hands. He loves that part of her, that says that her and Steve driving all the way to his new house for a single night is worth it because of that simple fact and means it completely.

“I didn’t.” Jonathan sighs, though, because no matter how much he tries not to think about the distance between them, it always comes back up. “I always sleep better with you. Both of you.” 

Her thumb brushes down his cheek, and when he turns to look at her she’s biting her lip. But when she sees he’s watching, she smiles again, dimmer than before. “It’s not that far,” she says. “Or for that long.” 

But still too far, and too long. It was hard enough to leave the first time, when it was just Nancy who was staying behind. Now that it’s her and Steve, it’s like trying to function with a wound in his side. He can do it, and he does, because his mom and Will and El need the space to heal, but it hasn’t stopped hurting. He’s not sure it will. 

“You can sleep in the shed,” he offers. This has become a game they play. It takes the edge off the reality of it. “It’s very cozy.” 

“Hm. Slightly better than your previous offer of the attic, but I think the police would notice.” 

“They don’t notice _anything,_ where have you been?” 

“Is Jonathan up?” Steve yells through the door.

Nancy rolls her eyes. “If he wasn’t, he would be now!” 

“That’s a yes!” 

The door opens, and Steve sticks his head through and grins at both of them. He’s been up for hours, clearly, since his hair is already styled, and now that the door is open the air smells like coffee and bacon, and it’s stupid but when his eyes land on Jonathan he gets the butterflies in his stomach all over again. Like he’s a middle schooler, not about to graduate, but that’s because with Steve, it’s really, truly new. They’ve known each other for years, been through hell together, but Jonathan just found out right now that Steve likes to make breakfast for his partners and if that’s not the most romantic thing ever he doesn’t know what is. 

“Morning,” is all Jonathan manages through the flutters in his stomach, which get worse when Steve opens the door completely and he sees that he’s shirtless. Just strolling around in his boxers, making breakfast for them, staring at them with their bedhead hair like he’s the one who got lucky and not the other way around. Who _does that?_ Nancy giggles at him, which must mean he looks as intelligent as he sounds, and he elbows her in the ribs to make her stop. 

Steve’s grin widens, and he comes in, crosses the room, and drops identical kisses on his forehead and Nancy’s. 

“Good morning, handsome,” he says. “I see the trauma sleepover worked its magic. You slept in.” 

Nancy sighs heavily. “You _cannot_ keep calling it that.” 

“Well, then what are we calling it? Cuddle party?” 

“I like that one,” Jonathan says, and because he can, grabs Steve’s arm and pulls him down on the bed next to him. 

Steve nearly falls on top of him, and Jonathan refuses to let go of his arm even when he starts laughing and trying to roll over. “I made breakfast!” He says, and his face is flushed, all his smooth moves dissolving because they caught him off guard, and this, this is the Steve that Jonathan loves. The real one that snorts when he laughs too hard, snores when he sleeps because he stays up until he’s absolutely exhausted, calls him stupid names sometimes because he wants to call him just as many pet names as he calls Nancy but he doesn’t know what to call a boyfriend. “It’s going to get cold!” 

“It’s a cuddle party. I can’t do that with just Nancy. She’s mean.” 

“I am not! I _apologized for that._ ” She looks up at Steve. “Our boyfriend is ridiculous.” 

Steve snorts into the pillow before he manages to roll over and finally get comfortable while Jonathan is holding his hand. “He’s trying to smother me. I _know._ ” 

“I’m trying to get you to lie down. I’m a terrible person.” 

There’s a moment of comfortable silence, and Jonathan feels his eyes trying to close on him again and fights to keep them open. He’s just relaxed. More than he has been for a while. 

“The cuddle party worked,” he says. “No nightmares.” 

“Good,” Steve says. “Us either.”

“I didn’t even dream, I was so out of it,” Nancy says, holding Steve’s other hand over Jonathan’s stomach, and he can feel that she’s stroking his hand just like she’s doing to Jonathan’s. “Did either of you dream?” 

“I dreamed I was performing on stage in my underwear,” Steve says very seriously. “Almost a nightmare, except I was rocking it and everyone loved me.”

Almost a nightmare, maybe, but a refreshingly normal one, and Jonathan laughs. “You would.” 

“I absolutely would, thank you. Come on. Did you dream?”

There’s still just the impression of the dream, in his head, no matter how Jonathan tries to call it back. He remembers how he felt during it. Calm. Safe. Relaxed. Full. Healed. 

Maybe he dreamed about this.

“Not really,” he says. “It doesn’t matter.” 

It was only a dream, and this is real.


End file.
